A former IRA prisoner says it is inevitable that speculation will suggest a range of Sinn Féin members are informers, due to the party's response to the Stakeknife affair.
Anthony McIntyre said it was hard to distinguish between truth and fiction because Sinn Féin had "clouded the water" by denying Freddie 'Stakeknife' Scappaticci was a British agent.
He was speaking as Sinn Féin last night (Sunday) warned that legal action would be issued against those who alleged that two Belfast republicans were informers.
The warning came after the Sunday Times claimed at least four Belfast republicans were visited by police and warned that the IRA suspected them to be informers.
The paper named Sinn Féin councillor Tom Hartley and former IRA prisoner Dickie Glenholmes as being linked to speculation on informers.
Mr Hartley, who has been a Belfast councillor since 1993, has no criminal convictions while Mr Glenholmes served 10 years in jail in England during the 1980s for an attempt to break IRA leader Brian Keenan out of Brixton prison.
The pair could not be contacted last night but a Sinn Féin spokesman said both men had instructed their solicitors to take legal action against any media outlet that named them as suspected informers.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin Monaghan TD Caoimhghin O Caolain said a newspaper report that he was rumoured to have been a Garda informer during the 1980s was "absolute nonsense".
"Over the last number of weeks we have seen repeated attempts to distract attention away from the fact that elements within Britain's intelligence agencies were responsible for collapsing the power-sharing government in the north," a Sinn Féin spokesman added.
